Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - This Is the Definitive Guide to HMB Supplementation

Episode Date: June 1, 2018

Every so often, a sports supplement comes along that gets everyone excited. That's supposed to "change the game" and push the boundaries of what's naturally achievable. HMB is one of those supplements. It burst onto the scene in 1996 to much fanfare and hoopla, and many thought it was destined to dethrone creatine as the reigning king of natural muscle building molecules. Well, science has now had a couple of decades to look into it, and, well, it didn't quite pan out. Despite what supplement marketers would have you believe, it's not as anabolic as steroids. Ironically, the research shows that it can't even support the label of "muscle builder." That said, it does have some legitimate uses for us fitness folk, so it's not a complete flop. And we're going to break it all down in this podcast. By the end, you're going to know what HMB is, why people supplement with it, how it can benefit you, how much you need to take to see those benefits, what side effects there are, and more. Let’s begin … 3:48 - What is HMB 6:03 - Can HMB help you gain muscle faster? 8:55 - Can HMB improve your recovery? 10:30 - Does HMB increase power output? 11:56 - Can HMB help reduce muscle break down rates? 12:44 - How much HMB do you have to take to help reduce muscle breakdown rates? 13:48 - What are the side effects of HMB? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey there, Mike Matthews here from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics, and welcome to another episode of the Muscle for Life podcast. This time around, we are going to be talking HMB. So if you want to know what HMB is, how it works, and whether or not it can help you gain muscle and strength faster, then this episode is for you. Now, every so often, a sports supplement comes along that really gets everybody excited. Something that is supposed to change the game and really push the boundaries of what is naturally achievable. HMB was one of those supplements. I wouldn't say it is one of those supplements anymore, but it definitely was one of those supplements. I wouldn't say it is one of those supplements anymore, but it definitely was one of those supplements. At one point, it was being touted as the next creatine and actually better than creatine. And in some cases, people were even comparing it to

steroids. It really burst onto the scene back in the 90s, actually, to a lot of fanfare and hoopla. actually, to a lot of fanfare and hoopla. And now that science has had a couple of decades to really look into it, it hasn't quite panned out. Now, despite what supplement marketers would have you believe, HMB is not as anabolic as steroids. And ironically, the research shows, or we could say the weight of the evidence shows, that it really can't even support the label of a muscle builder. That said, it is not completely useless. It does have some legitimate uses for us fitness folk. So it's not a complete flop, and we are going to break it all down in this episode. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So

instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for women, thinner, leaner, stronger. Now this book has sold over 150,000 copies in the last several years, and it has helped thousands of women build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 1,200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that keep women from ever achieving the lean, sexy, strong, and healthy bodies they truly desire. And if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate female body, then you want to read Thinner, Leaner, Stronger today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon,

iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can actually get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audiobooks. I myself love them because they let me make the time that I spend doing things like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, simply go to www.bitly.com slash free TLS book. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just have to click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to Thinner, Leaner you just have to click the sign up today and save button, create your account,

and voila, you get to listen to Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for free. All righty, that is enough shameless plugging for now, at least. Let's get to the show. All right, so let's start at the top as usual. What is HMB? Well, HMB is shorthand for beta-hydroxy-betyl-methylbutyrate, which is, of course, a multi-syllabic word that sounds very fancy and maybe even dangerous, but all HMB actually is, is a metabolite of the amino acid leucine. So it's a natural substance and a metabolite, leucine. So it's a natural substance and a metabolite, by the way, is a metabolic byproduct. So it's a substance that results from the processing of another, and in this case, leucine. So when your body processes leucine, which is an amino acid found in all the forms of protein that you eat, one of the molecules that is produced is HMB. And scientists discovered this molecule through research conducted on leucine supplementation because they learned that leucine influenced protein synthesis,

glucose levels, and muscle recovery, but they didn't know why. A hypothesis was that these benefits were being mediated by something produced when the body metabolized leucine. So it wasn't leucine per se that was causing these effects in the body. It was something that was produced when the body processed leucine. And this turned out to be a fruitful line of inquiry because it led to the discovery of HMB. It wasn't long before savvy supplement marketers caught on and the HMB market was born. Now, out of all the supplements you can take for your muscles, HMB has ranked near the top in terms of purported benefits. Again, it was really big back in the nineties and then it lost some popularity and it came back even recently. I remember seeing

MuscleTech had a supplement, it might still be on the market, actually called Clear, which contained HMB, which was the primary active ingredient. And it was being sold in the same way that HMB supplements are always sold. More muscle growth, more strength, more endurance, better recovery, and so forth. Now, how well do these types of claims stand up to scientific scrutiny? Not very good. Let's break them down. Can HMB help you gain muscle faster? Well, muscles are made of protein, of course, which is why protein synthesis, the creation of proteins, is the fundamental to the physiology of muscle growth. And HMB supplementation, we are told, promotes higher levels of protein synthesis in the body, which of course would mean that our muscles grow faster. Now this is a good pitch, it's a good

theory, but research casts doubt on these claims. For example, one study found that HMB supplementation did increase protein synthesis rates, but it was greatly outperformed by the same dose of its parent molecule, leucine, and other studies have found no such benefits whatsoever. So when you look at all the available evidence and when you weigh it, you have to conclude that HMB is in fact not a powerful muscle builder. no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness,

Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Now, what about anaerobic endurance? And in case you're not sure what that is, let's just start there. There are two different types of endurance. You have aerobic and anaerobic. And the key difference between the two is the presence or the absence of oxygen. So for example, when you exercise at a relatively low intensity, like walking or jogging, your body is able to keep up with your muscles demand for oxygen. This is called aerobic exercise with oxygen. That's the root of aerobic. And it leans on your body's aerobic system to supply the energy that you need. Now, when you exercise at a higher intensity through something like high intensity interval training, maybe sprinting or heavy weightlifting or even lighter weightlifting pushed close to the point of failure,

your body simply can't supply enough oxygen to your muscles to keep up with the energy demands being placed on them. This of course is anaerobic exercise, anaerobic, the roots there being without oxygen, and it's powered by your body's anaerobic system, which can generate energy without oxygen. Now it's often claimed that HMB can increase your anaerobic endurance and thus your workout performance and your weightlifting performance in particular, but studies contradict these claims. When you look at the evidence, it would appear that HMB is no more effective at improving sprint performance or any other type of

high-intensity exercise than a placebo. What about recovery? Can HMB improve your recovery? And this is important because the better you can recover from your workouts, the more effective they are in terms of muscle gain and the more frequently you can train, which means the more volume you can rack up for your various muscle groups, which of course results in greater muscle growth over time. And this is why bodybuilders talk so much about muscle being built outside of the gym. Everything that you do to support muscle recovery, like eating right, sleeping enough, staying out of the gym, not overtraining, is what allows muscle growth to occur.

Now, in the case of HMB, we're not quite sure. It may or may not help with recovery. Only two studies that I know of have been done to directly test this hypothesis. And one was positive. One found positive recovery effects, but the other one failed to see any such benefits. So we're going to have to see what else comes out on this before we can make a final judgment. But it is disingenuous to say that research shows HMB can definitively improve post-workout recovery. Because it may in some people under some circumstances and it may not in others

under other circumstances, and we just don't know why. What about power output? That's another common claim used to sell HMB. It increases power output. Now, what is power output? It sounds kind of cool and it's definitely thrown around a lot in fitness circles, but many people actually don't know what it means. So let's just take a moment here as usual to define our terms. Simply put, power output describes the amount of work that's being done in a given period of time. And work in this sense refers to the application of force to overcome resistance. So think of flexing your biceps, for example. The force generated by the contraction of the muscles must overcome both internal and external resistance in the form of friction and gravity to successfully bend your arm. Now, if you were to measure the amount of

force that it took you to do that, to flex your guns, you'd have a measurement of the power output of that movement. Now, you can increase your muscles power output by increasing their strength, of course, or by increasing the amount of time that they can maintain forceful contractions for. This is why one of our fundamental goals in resistance training is to increase the power output of our various muscle groups over time. And unfortunately, studies show that HMB simply is not going to help us there. It does not increase power output. Next on the list is muscle breakdown rates. Can HMB help reduce muscle breakdown rates? And now finally, we get to some good news because there is good evidence that HMB does indeed mitigate muscle breakdown, which makes it particularly

useful for people who like to train fasted. So in short, what HMB does is it slows down the rate at which your body breaks proteins down, which allows you to reap the fat loss benefits of fasted exercise, which are negligible by themselves, but become significant if you combine fasted exercise with a few supplements like sinephrine, caffeine, and yohimbine. And so when you include HMB now, you get to get the added fat loss while negating the downsides of fasted training related to elevated muscle breakdown rates. So what about clinically effective dosages? How much HMB do you have to take to successfully mitigate muscle breakdown rates? Well, the quick answer is one to three grams per

day. That's all you need. And some people say that you have to use the free acid form for anti-catabolic purposes because that's what was used in a couple of studies, but these people are kind of missing the forest for the trees because the free acid form is, yes, it's more immediately bioavailable. That's true in the calcium salt form, which is the other common form that you'll find in supplements. But all that means is that your body can access the HMB quicker, not that the calcium salts HMB molecules are somehow inferior or lost due to metabolic processes. start to ramp up until an hour or so after you've finished your workout, which gives your body plenty of time to start processing the HMB, whether it's in the calcium salt form or the free acid form. Now, what about side effects? Are there any side effects to worry about if

you're taking one to three grams of HMB per day? And the answer is no. In scientific research, the highest dose of a substance that you can take or give to an animal before noticing adverse effects is called the no observed adverse effect level, NOAEL. And animal research on HMB indicates that it's NOAEL in humans is very high, probably about 558 milligrams per kilogram for males and about 665 milligrams per kilogram in females. And to put that in perspective, I weigh about 194 pounds, which is about 88 kilograms, which means that I probably wouldn't start noticing adverse effects until I got up to 50 grams of HMB, which would be absurd. So we can rest assured that a few grams per day is not likely to do anything adverse in our bodies. So the bottom line here on HMB is it's really

just a victim of unrealistic expectations and standard marketing shenanigans. It was supposed to be the next big thing and it just isn't. What it is, though, is a powerful anti-catabolic agent, which makes it valuable under certain circumstances like fasted training. and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live,

then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for

constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in, so instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for women, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 150,000 copies in the last several years, and it has helped thousands of women build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 1,200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that keep women from ever achieving the lean,

sexy, strong, and healthy bodies they truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate female body, then you want wanna read Thinner, Leaner, Stronger today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can actually get the audio book 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do

if you're not currently listening to audio books. I myself love them because they let me make the time that I spend doing things like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, simply go to www.bitly.com slash free TLS book. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just have to click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to thinner, leaner, stronger for free.